College of Education moves up in this year's listings; CBA international business programs in the top 25 nationwide; law school in the top 100 and cited for div

The University of Hawaiʻi College of Education continues to gain recognition among the nation‘s top teacher preparation schools in the US News & World Report rankings released today. The College was listed for the first time last year among the country‘s top 100 schools (number 73 last year), and this year moves up to number 60.

"The US News rankings are one measure of the good work of our faculty, staff and students," said Dean Randy Hitz. "We appreciate this good national attention to the work we are doing."

The magazine ranked 190 graduate programs in education nationwide this year. The college received a quality assessment score based on inquiries to education deans and graduate study deans and an assessment from school superintendents. The education program rankings also take into account student selectivity, faculty resources and research activity.

The magazine‘s annual report on graduate schools also lists programs in the UH Manoa College of Business Administration and the William S. Richardson School of Law as among the nation‘s best.

Business college deans and directors of accredited master‘s programs were surveyed to nominate programs of excellence in specialty areas. Graduate programs in international business at UH Manoa tie for twenty-second this year with Florida International University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. These programs — and UH Manoa undergraduate programs in international business — have consistently been ranked in the top 25 nationally over the last several years.

"The university‘s stature in this important area is one of the things that attracted me to Manoa when I decided to come here," said business college Dean Vance Roley. "We know we do excellent work here, and it‘s always good to have outside affirmation of that."

The Richardson School of Law continues to rank in the top half of the 179 law schools accredited by the American Bar Association — listed this year at number 83.

Legal educators from across the country nominated programs for specialty categories, and they again selected the UH Environmental Law program as one of the nation‘s tops — listing it at number 25 — consistent with rankings over a number of years.

The magazine‘s diversity index identifies law schools "where students are most likely to encounter classmates from different ethnic backgrounds — not including international students." The UH law school is in the top 15 in the country according to their criteria.

"We are very pleased to be singled out for recognition among the country‘s best again this year," said Dean Aviam Soifer, "and particularly so for our diversity and for our renowned Environmental Law program. In fact we are substantially more diverse than these overbroad mainland diversity categories can capture, and they provide no rankings at all for Asia-Pacific Law, a category in which we undoubtedly also would be at or near the very top."

Chancellor Peter Englert pointed out that UH Manoa provides virtually all of the graduate and advanced degree professional education for the UH system and the State of Hawaiʻi. "This attention to selected programs of excellence is always appreciated," he said, " and we know that we have many other programs of national and international stature as well that are not surveyed regularly."

US News methodology (From the magazine‘s own descriptive material)"Each year, U.S. News ranks professional-school programs in business,education, engineering, law, and medicine. These rankings are based on twotypes of data: expert opinion about program quality and statisticalindicators that measure the quality of a school's faculty, research, andstudents. For the rankings in all five areas, indicator and opinion datacome from surveys of nearly 1,300 programs and almost 9,600 academics andprofessionals conducted in fall 2004."